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Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba Group

Overnight, Jack Ma announced to the world that he would step down as CEO of Alibaba Group in Ma.

To me, this was the biggest news in tech today. Not Apple (AAPL) breaking below $500. Not Graph Search by Facebook (FB).

Ma said he would become Executive Chairman of Alibaba in May when his successor takes over.

The title "Executive Chairman" is usually picked by a founder to denote to others who follow the company that he or she is not merely playing golf all the time. It's meant to convey: "Hey, I still have an office and I'll be working very hard for the company."

I expect that's true.

Alibaba has done a lot of press in the last 24 hours explaining why Ma is retiring now. The key points are:

- Jack Ma is 48 and the Internet is a young man's or woman's game

- He wants to spend more time doing other things

- He will still be working hard at Alibaba though for many years to come

What he hasn't discussed much in his press interviews is how this news affects speculation that Alibaba will IPO in the coming years. It wasn't mentioned in Andrew Ross Sorkin's and Michael De La Merced's piece this morning that broke the news on the retirement in the New York Times.

Sorkin tweeted me back this morning when I asked him about the possibility of an IPO in the offing due to this news saying: "he said an ipo is still a ways off".

For a while now, Ma has played possum when it comes to answering the question of when Alibaba will IPO, only acknowledging that it will happen "in the next few years." That still sounds very open-ended but there are several reasons to think Jack Ma's announcement today indicates that Alibaba is likely to IPO this year:

1. According to the recent deal with Yahoo (YHOO) though, whereby Alibaba bought back half of the stake Yahoo owned in it, it's clear that Alibaba is incented to IPO before the end of 2015. Otherwise, they lose the right to buyback half of Yahoo's remaining stake during the IPO itself. So, we know that Alibaba will IPO before the end of 2015.

2. Even though Jack Ma will continue to be involved in the business, why wouldn't he want to be a major part of an IPO road show? That's not to say he can't be in the future but he certainly is probably closer to the business now than he will be in two years. It would seem to make more sense to have him part of a road show now rather than later.

3. As I've said before here, the sooner that Alibaba IPOs, the less capital they'll need to buy back all of Yahoo's stake. They would rather own more of a fast-growing asset if they can. So why not IPO sooner?

4. As Hamish McKenzie of Pando said today, "Ma... is known for ...choosing auspicious dates for important business." For an American audience, this might seem a little odd. However, it is what it is. And, as I've noted before, the year 2014 when spoken in Mandarin, happens to sound like the Chinese word for "death." That means that Alibaba would be much more likely to IPO this year (2013) or in 2015. But, for the reasons mentioned above, Alibaba and its employees would be better off IPO'ing sooner than later to own more of the company they've built.

5. There have been several reports in the last few months in the Chinese media that Jack Ma has been sick in the last year. He didn't mention this in any of his press interviews today. In this one from earlier this month, for example, Ma says he suffered from some "personal issues" in the year 2012. This might in fact be a bigger reason why he's stepping down now, rather than "the Internet is a young man's game" reason he gave to the press. Jack Ma is fiercely competitive. It's pointless to speculate about what these issues might be - if they exist at all - or how they might factor in to the timing of an IPO.

6. The US government recently took Alibaba off its list of "notorious markets." This is a list of companies that knowingly do business with people who don't respect copyrights and other moral standards set out by the US government. This allows Alibaba to IPO in the US immediately.

The bottom line is that, with this news today that Ma is stepping down as CEO and up to Executive Chairman, Alibaba's odds of IPO'ing in 2013 probably increased.

That's good for Yahoo shareholders who still own 24% of that company (pre-dilution).

Many Wall Street firms already seem to be suggesting today that the likelihood has gone up and must be factored in to the Yahoo market valuation more closely than perhaps they were last night.